1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to electronic mail systems and, more particularly, the invention relates to a method, article of manufacture and apparatus for restricting the receipt of delegate reply messages.
2. Background of the Related Art
In today's electronic mail (e-mail) environment, many users utilize a delegate reply feature while away on vacation or business. This delegate reply feature may automatically create and send a delegate reply message in response to a sent message. The delegate reply message notifies the sender that the user, i.e., the recipient of the sent message, is unavailable or not present, and generally provides a reason for their absence.
Although the delegate reply message is useful to the recipients of the sent message, the delegate reply message also contributes to extraneous messages or clutter to the sender. When the message is sent to a large audience, this cluttering problem is exacerbated if the recipients in the audience use the automatic delegate reply feature. In this situation, extra effort is required by the sender to clean up the delegate reply messages. As such, the large amount of delegate reply e-mail received would discourage the sender from sending messages to such a large audience.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method, article of manufacture and apparatus prevent this cluttering problem by restricting the receipt of delegate reply messages.